Bingo.. having used Canon service quite a few times they are just fantastic at that part.
The brand wars are mostly an amateur thing.. once you decide on a brand if you're really serious and especially if you're running a business you don't jump brands over little differences in sensor performance because it's too much financial churn and you lose your muscle memory switching to a camera with a different control layout.
But it really sucks if your gear goes down and it's hard to get it serviced.
Canon's service is fast, excellent, and much more affordable than replacement.
> you lose your muscle memory switching to a camera with a different control layout.
This is a -huge- thing for some folks.
Have a colleague who does some light pro photography (i.e. weddings, concerts, etc.) I wouldn't call him a Canon zealot or anything, although his first comment at my Sony was 'Well, it's not a Nikon so I can still be your friend.'
We were showing each other shots and he was amazed at what I was able to produce with an e-mount. So he decided to give it a little spin.
All the feedback was around 2 points:
- It took good shots, but.
- Everything was so unfamiliar to him that he missed shots due to not being able to find anything.
Some time later I ran into him again; he had tried Sony cameras a few more times but just couldn't get comfortable enough with the layout.
(The Sony layout -is- kinda bad, even if it's what you've learned on.)
As someone who recently switched to Sony from Canon; I don't recall ever having to 'learn' the menu layout with Canon. It was just pretty obvious. I'm 100% sure that I never read the user manual and I never googled how to find anything in the menus.
The Sony layout on the otherhand is just terrible. Sure, you can customize all the programmable buttons and menus and it gets much better, but it still takes a long time to learn. Also, had to watch a ton of youtube videos of people changing settings on their camera (the fact that there are so many for Sony cameras should hint to how terrible the menu is).
The brand wars are mostly an amateur thing.. once you decide on a brand if you're really serious and especially if you're running a business you don't jump brands over little differences in sensor performance because it's too much financial churn and you lose your muscle memory switching to a camera with a different control layout.
But it really sucks if your gear goes down and it's hard to get it serviced.
Canon's service is fast, excellent, and much more affordable than replacement.